”Becoming a parent has defined me; I am the happiest i have ever been.”
This is the sort of stuff people say out loud in public. This is the sort of stuff you hear in interviews or read about in glossy magazines – but is it actually true?
What if you don’t feel that way? What if you were happier before?
I watched a really interesting TED talk the other day which was about encouraging honesty in parenting and dispelling some of the most popular myths – one of which was that people often wax lyrical about how happy they are since they became parents.
They looked at four (yes four!) independent studies tracking individuals happiness over the course of their marriage and you can see the findings below. The green line is the average result.
TED – Let’s talk parenting Taboos by Rufus Griscom & Alisa Volkman
